


I'm Not Doing Well

by toniwilder



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27495931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toniwilder/pseuds/toniwilder
Summary: The pleasant dreams were the hardest.Loki wakes from a dream where Frigga still lives and the house of Odin is unharmed. It's harder than the nightmares.
Relationships: Frigga | Freyja & Loki (Marvel), Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	I'm Not Doing Well

The pleasant dreams were the hardest. The intoxicating blur of the fog of her still being beside him, smiling, and then waking up and still believing them to be true. It hit hardest when he wore Odin’s face, slept in Odin’s quarters, beside where she once slept. Then she was gone, the Allfather cast out, and Loki was left to the suffocating feeling of loneliness wearing the mask of another. A true snake in another’s skin.

Aboard the Statesman, the dream came suddenly. It compacted with the sudden feeling of being dragged back down to Hel all those years ago without her.

Loki sat in bed as the dream lifted from him. Like being pulled out of the water, suddenly heavier than he had ever known himself to be. He shut his eyes, let his arms spread wide and hands hang off the side of the mattress, and clenched his jaw. Tears leaked and escaped him with the emotional wherewithal of a fruit being juiced. Involuntary. The byproduct of so much pressure.

He dreamt of her, years before any of their lives had been touched by Thanos or even the coronation. Loki, young and bright-eyed, back in time and able to save her. He was going to save her.

And she smiled at him and held his hand and it had felt so real.

Then the Statesman creaked and jostled underneath and she was gone and Loki was atop the bed again. He lifted his left hand to his stomach and counted the breaths.

“Loki?”

Of course Thor would still be in the room. Watching. Probably waiting for Loki to disappear as well.

He wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t.

Loki opened his eyes and let the ceiling blur from his tears until finally closing his eyes again and letting the last of them go.

“Loki.”

“Hmm.”

The bed bowed underneath Thor’s weight as he took a seat where Loki’s feet just barely stayed on the mattress. Thor rested a hand atop Loki’s shin, still covered in the large fur blanket left behind by the Grandmaster’s more extravagant party guests.

“Nightmare?” Thor asked.

“No.” Loki cleared his throat. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“Oh?”

“A dream about mother. Before all of this.” Loki opened his eyes and pulled both of his hands u to wipe at the tears. “Before your coronation.”

“Oh.”

Thor turned more towards him then, the other hand pressed into the mattress now.

“Those are the worst, I think,” Thor’s voice was soft. “I dreamt you called to me, before I knew you survived Svartálfheim, that you had both returned. I believed it so fully…”

Loki snorted.

“But then you woke up?”

Thor’s sigh felt like a gust of air from a boding storm. It moved the bed beneath them. Loki finally sat up and pushed the blanket aside. Thor’s hand finally fell from his shin.

“… Yes,” Thor admitted.

“You will see her again, brother,” Loki recited. “In Valhalla.”

Loki stood, stretched his arms above his head, and ignored the way his nerves jittered like his body might begin shaking at any moment.

“You say that as if you won’t,” Thor countered.

He was becoming far too accustomed to Loki’s loops and double meanings. Thor once only took things for the convenient first layer, rarely looked past the easy assumption. For him to look in and see what was there, even in its darkness, made Loki’s hands pull together and pick at the skin over his palm. Being seen was… Uncomfortable.

“I don’t know where I will be,” Loki replied. “I rarely settle for one place for long. Valhalla wouldn’t suit me.”

Thor’s eyebrows pulled together. The eyebrow over the patch went tight, made wrinkles where there hadn’t been any before, and Loki could see Odin in him.

He hadn’t had the false dream of Odin yet, but Loki had killed Odin’s memory in himself long ago.

“Wherever you go, you’ll lie while you’re there. That much is certain.” Thor shook his head. “Take your time this morning, brother. Be kind.”

“Oh?” Loki grinned. “Am I not always kind? I thought I’d improved lately.”

“To yourself.” The words came out in exasperation. “You are very rarely kind to yourself. Do it today.”

Loki’s face fell.

“And how might you suggest I practice that?”

Thor shook his head. “I don’t know, brother. If I did, I’d already be doing it for you.”

Malevolence flooded Loki, sudden with the rage of grief, nonsensical in its trigger.

“I think the first step would be for you to leave me alone.” Loki motioned to the door. “You have work to do, King.”

Thor scoffed.

“Alright.” He stood and headed for the door. “I’ll come find you when food’s ready,” he said over his shoulder.

“I won’t be here,” Loki decided suddenly, without thinking on it.

“I didn’t suppose you would be,” Thor said without turning around. He left Loki to the room, to the pressure. His hands shook.

Loki crawled back into bed, shut his eyes, and clung to his pillow.

She is dead. She is gone and she cannot return. She is dead, you foolish boy, even still.

Over and over until the words built the stone up around his feeble subconscious.

Stop dreaming of her. You can’t do anything. She is dead.

She is dead.

She is dead.

**Author's Note:**

> My mother died at the end of October very suddenly. Some things I've been sharing publicly through myself, but the grief of waking up and thinking your parent is still here isn't something I think I can talk in detail without a proxy. Mom would call me her Loki, so things went from there. 
> 
> For those who follow my other works (Road Work Ahead in particular), I do still anticipate finishing them. My life is a bit unsteady right now though, as you can imagine.


End file.
